About The Game
Hex Rally Racers is a 3D Cart Racer for PC. In the game, players can race through mystical race tracks as witches, using their magic brooms to combine ingredients to craft spells to help themselves, or hinder others. The game can be played either couch co-op or online using Steam's share play feature.
Contributions
​
-
Level Design
-
World Building
-
Landscape Building
-
Set Dressing
​
In this project, I acted primarily as a Level Designer and World Builder. I worked on the Lunar Lake track from concept to completion, and worked on the Eldermoon Falls track from early production to completion. I was responsible for planning, adjusting layout, building terrain, placing geometry, and set dressing these levels.
Eldermoon Falls
Lunar Lake
Lunar Lake
Lunar Lake was my primary responsibility for this project. The idea for this level was to have a fun, open space for the players to ride on as well as a massive jump in which the players could get a good view of the whole track. We also wanted to give the players lots of opportunities to take alternate paths and shortcuts throughout the race.
Open Space
To give the player an open space to race in, I proposed incorporating a large body of water that the player could race on top of. We decided to go with a lake with a small island in the middle. This allows the players to not only spread out and try different angles of attack, but also allows us to create a few different paths for players to choose.
Alternate Paths
I wanted to give players lots of opportunity to choose different routes and to take shortcuts. We decided to designate the "regular path" with the wood path that snakes throughout the level, and designate shortcuts with natural ground and foliage. I was responsible for carving these shortcuts out of the landscape and giving enough conveyance for players to easily see alternate paths.
Eldermoon Falls
Eldermoon Falls was my secondary responsibility for this project. Though I was assigned this track after pre-production, I was very involved in the actual building of the level. For this track, we wanted to give players a variety of areas to race in, and have lots of opportunity for creativity when choosing alternate paths.
Variety
To achieve our goal of variety, we incorporated three distinct track types into this level (Ground, River, and Magic). I was responsible for carving the ground track out of the terrain, and adjusting the magic track for optimal flow and smoothness. I was able to refine these sections for maximum speed, cornering, and fun.
Creativity
One goal we had for this track was to give the player the option to take unorthodox shortcuts. We included traditional alternate paths, but we set the track up in such a way that the player could actually jump from one part of the track to another to save time. In doing this, we allowed for the players to feel clever for finding a unique way to take a shortcut while making sure it was fully functional.
Postmortem
Went Well
Went Wrong
-
Teamwork. This was a massive team of 60+ people working on a single project. Despite the size of the group, we were able to communicate effectively and pick up slack where others fell behind. Working with others to overcome obstacles was critical to the success of the game.
​
-
Task Management. On a team this size, management is important. Through the use of tools such as Miro, Monday, and Perforce, we were able to keep track of our tasks, what others were working on, and not waste time repeating work others had already done.
​
-
Playtesting. Our leads did a great job of finding lots of testers throughout the project. As we kept the game in a playable state consistently, we were able to get a constant flow of feedback throughout the project.
-
Aesthetics. In this project, we did not have a strong color palette for our levels. We ended up with levels that were very monochromatic and so we struggled guiding players through the tracks due to lack of visual variety. We were able to find creative solutions, but the monochrome levels were a major hinderance in ease of navigation.
​
-
Performance. We quickly found out that the art assets we were using in the game were poorly optimized, and the lighting was very taxing on performance. We had to scramble to get our levels meeting our desired framerate at the end, and had to cut out a lot of set dressing to earn back frames. In the end, we were able to meet our desired performance metrics.​
What I Learned
-
Conveyance. When it comes to racing games, conveyance is everything. Through this project, I learned how important conveyance is to a fast paced level, and what the best practices are for achieving strong conveyance. Due to our monochromatic color palette, I had to get creative with showing players where to go. I utilized repetitive themes, leading lines, and framing to tell the player where the track was going before they got to the corners.
​
-
Optimization. I learned a lot about how critical it is to start optimizing a game early. It is very difficult to gain frames back towards the end of a project. I also learned a great deal about how to optimize levels, such as reducing lighting complexity and using LODs to reduce strain on graphics cards.